From its inception two years ago, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Humans has named cruelty in religion as one of our concerns. Though not often addressed, it remains a major problem. In fact, religious cruelty as expressed by Al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals is the number one evil blighting the human race today.
Some Muslims have assured the rest of the world that the radicals do not represent them, that Islam is a peace-loving and compassionate religion. I have replied, don't tell us; tell your own radicals, in no uncertain terms. If you want credibility, firmly renounce your extremists who advocate violence as a means of advancing their faith.
Unfortunately, there is still a need to fully implement humane behavior among Christians as well. If we call on Muslims to renounce cruelty, we Christians must do the same, or be hypocrites. Confrontation of our own people is never easy or pleasant, but at some point failure to do so becomes an expression of cowardice and a dereliction of one's duty to God and man.
The Bible says, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but
sin is a disgrace to any people" (Proverbs 14:34). It is a disgrace to Muslims and it is a disgrace to Christians.
Many Christians would say that torture and violence, while regrettable, may be used in fighting greater evils. However, history teaches that violence usually spawns more violence and that righteous ends are better pursued by non-violent means. Mohandus Ghandi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and Martin Luther King Jr. in America all demonstrated that.
Torture of Terrorist Suspects
A Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21 showed that 54% of people who attend church services at least once a week approve torture of suspected terrorists under certain conditions. Among white evangelical Protestants, conditional approval of torture increased to 62%. Meanwhile, only 33% of people who seldom or never attend church would approve torture. The other 5% were undecided. (To see the survey results google: Pew Forum: The Religious Dimensions of the Torture Debate)
Aren't those figures the reverse of what one should expect? Frankly, they puzzle me. Why would Christians be more amenable to torture than non-Christians are? My church always taught that the end does not justify the means. The Apostle Paul emphatically condemned the idea: "Let us do evil that good may result" (Romans 3:8). I cannot understand why evil has now become the "right thing" to do in the eyes of some of the very same Christians who so strongly condemned situational ethics and affirmed absolutes in the realm of morality.
What are young people to think of religious leaders who teach them absolutes but then, when the storm hits, decide that right and wrong depends on the situation after all.
When "good people" use bad means, especially cruelty, they risk degenerating into sadistic brutes, as demonstrated by American torturers in Iraq. The pictures from Abu Ghraib showed Americans taking pleasure in humiliating and abusing prisoners.
Now we learn that accused 9/11 conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. (Not in 183 separate sessions, but there were 183 distinct "pourings.") If waterboarding was effective in getting information, why was it needed so many times? And, more to my point, what does inflicting that level of abuse do to the humanity of the abusers?
Radical Islam is a clear and present danger to our country and, indeed, to civilization, and it must be stopped. But Christians are taught by Scripture that the greatest threat we face is not external but internal and spiritual. "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood . . . but against the spiritual forces of evil" (Ephesians 6:12).
Torture debases the torturer and the society that approves it. It violates the Golden Rule-to do unto others as we would have them do unto us-and it violates the second greatest commandment-to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Torture damages America's image in the world, and it also damages Christianity's image in the eyes of unbelievers. One of them, writing under the internet name Truelogic says:
To this day, Christians are making excuses for Torture and the war that was based on LIES and has caused the killing, murdering and suffering of millions. Innocent people. However, even if they were not innocent, their [the Christian's] GOD told them "thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies" and clearly, they disobeyed their God. These simple teachings are easy to remember and when you vote to have your leaders do these things, you are indirectly responsible. When you don't speak out against this type of behavior, you are responsible.
We can get angry about those charges; we can say they are unjustified and self-serving on the part of the cynic. The fact remains that our actions have provided the ammunition for this kind of attack on our faith.
The early Christians were willing to suffer and die for Christ. Sometimes we seem more ready to inflict suffering and to kill.
The Apostle Paul asked the Christians in Galatia, "Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16). I ask you a similar question? Am I your enemy because I oppose torture. If so, might I be waterboarded next? I don't seriously think for one moment that could happen. But then, I would never have believed that 62 % of my fellow evangelicals would torture others either.
Ann van Wijgerden:
THANK YOU, Stanley, for speaking out against torture!
Keith w Kunz:
torcher is never okay.
Warm Thanks! with Love in the name of Jesus.
Keith w. Kunz
Lay Eucharistic Minister
Episcopal Church USA.
David Burder:
Only two classes of people, continue to inhabit our world, in every generation..
Those on the side of God- Jesus Christ and those who are not.
Obviously, the latter belong to the family of God that includes me and 'spch'.
Either we go all the way - the narrow way or we don't.
Compromise to the littlest extent, should be ok, but has to done in wisdom.
The Lord is gracious and plenteous in mercy.
Christ remains, Lord of the first century christians and of the centuries following.
The suffering and dying of the christians of the 20th/21st century is no less than
those of the first. The world of nations exists today because God 'lets them'. All, for
the sake of his people-the born-agains !
Let's keep up the good work of taking 'revenge' - Returning good for evil, BUT
the question to be kept in focus is: Are we suffering for Christ's sake or for foolishness sake ?
Jim Stair:
Here is the Bernard Goldberg statement for your other readers: “I’m against water-boarding 99% of the time. They (the President and the Attorney General) are against it 100% of the time. I’m against it for litter bugs. I’m against it for jay walkers. I’m even against it for punishing somebody for something they already did. But please, I wish one of these liberals – my old liberal friends-- would tell me. They talk about American values, that’s why they are against all torture. Please tell me what American value is being withheld, that we thought by “torturing” --I’m putting the word in quotation marks-- somebody, we could prevent a city from being exposed to a dirty nuclear bomb.
What American value is being upheld by saying, “I’m against ‘torture’ all the time” and what if it isn’t an American city where 100,000 people may die, but one yellow school bus with 30 fourth graders on their way to a museum. You tell me, what American value is upheld by letting that school bus get blown up? Sorry, I don’t get it."
Stanley Baldwin:
The American value violated by torture involves deciding someone is about to blow up a bus or city though one has no proof of it and then compelling that person to "confess" just to stop the unendurable pain of torture.
Richard Land:
"I consider waterboarding torture. … I can't imagine that being repeatedly subjected to the feeling of drowning would not, in some cases, cause lasting psychological trauma."
(Richard Land is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Source: Religion News Service)